Symbiosis
by kismesis
Summary: They function together, both in perfect, harmonious denial.


AN: I suppose this is written in the same vein as With You, but…I don't know. Written in the same vein, but that vein is in a different person, or possibly a small aquatic creature.

Blargh. I think this was written much worse than my previous story. It's annoying, to know that this _could_ be improved, and that it won't be.

I think creepy experiences might have negative effects on this. Aside from an incident with laughing, soundtrack dissonance and power outages earlier today, I had a weird moment. I went with Friend A to Friend B's house, to take Friend B's dog for a walk and make sure things hadn't exploded in her home, as she's in Croatia for a few weeks and can't teleport back to the Greater Toronto Area to make sure that sort of thing hasn't happened.

Anyways, while I was at Friend B's house, Friend A went to get water for B's dog while I paced between her living room and her firmly shut basement door. Both cats in B's house had been silent, up until I started walking past the door. Then, they'd each let out a single, crackling meow.

Okay, so in retrospect that's not creepy at all, but I'm alone in my own basement right now and the lights are still kinda flickery and I'm prone to getting the shit scared out of me why is this note so loooong

***********

He's changed by the girl.

Without warning, during his third year of middle school, the girl speaks to him. Those few words shared in their first meeting made an impact upon landing, drew them closer together.

He of all people should know what kind of effect can be carried by a couple words, simple vowels and consonants strung together.

To her eternal annoyance, he doesn't ever make this discovery.

***********

He is raw and malleable when he meets the girl, the enduringly skeptical cynic who would alter him for the first time. He tells her stories of every variety, always having a backlog of fairy tales or articles, accounts of conversations overheard in dreary lines under supermarket fluorescents and whatever else was flowing through his brain at the moment.

For every story he told, the misanthropic young girl would offer only criticism in return. He'd think something up on the spot, either in a vain attempt to lighten the girl's mood or just because his mind was churning out letters and paragraphs and he needed to let them out, to talk at someone and relieve the buildup in his brain.

With no questions asked, she'd shoot him down.

He came into junior high flexible, adolescent, acting his age for once in his life.

He left junior high hardened. The girl had set him in stone, transformed him into a statue of his previous self.

At the time he was being changed, she was changing herself. Though she would meet him shortly, he had not even the slightest idea of her existence.

A synchronized pair.

As she was burning brighter, accumulating every eccentricity, every quirk she could find, he was done fading away, already extinguished and cooled.

Even the most rigid stone can be melted by a searing flame.

***********

He doesn't see the cynical girl after graduation.

At first, he creates excuses, always having an appointment or a sickness or prior plans ready to be blamed for preventing the two from meeting.

Ultimately, he stops responding at all. Phone calls are evaded, emails unnoticed, every form of communication treated as if weren't there.

As the holiday from school progresses, the behavior extends further than the one girl it was intended for.

He tells himself he's not being antisocial. He's only sick of his boring world, which just happens to extend to those bland individuals within it.

He supposes that bland is really the best he should get. He's just as plain and featureless as every other person he knows, so why on earth would anyone out of the ordinary, anyone exciting and unique, bother talking to him?

When he thinks about it, he realizes he could simply start to alter himself, making adjustments here and there, every modification bringing him closer to being the unusual person he dreams of meeting.

He doesn't want to focus on that idea. He tells himself he's just too lazy to change himself.

He busies himself with every activity he can find, playing with his sister or contemplating the pile of homework sitting in his room. He knows he's only doing these things to get away from the thoughts drifting through his head, to preoccupy his brain with events and dates.

If he has even a moment of spare time, a moment of boredom, he'll begin to think.

He says he's lazy.

Laziness works as a multipurpose excuse for him.

He's too lazy to change himself. It's not that he doesn't want to try, because if he fails it means he's hopelessly tedious, mind-numbing to an extreme level.

He'll get used to being called that, when she yells at him for arriving last, when he can only pedal slowly while his bike groans under the weight of the two.

For now, all he is, all he's ever been and all he ever will be, is lazy. It's neither a bad quality nor a good one, right in the drab middle of the scale.

It's easier for him to say lazy than it is to say that he's ordinary, commonplace, and exactly the same as every other trite, stale human being in the world.

If she had to describe him with a single word, she'd say "oblivious".

***********

He's changed by a girl.

She comes into his life at full speed, charging at him with small, calmly delivered words that he'll remember for years to come.

She was never particularly verbose. A nice contrast to him, the eloquent one, the constant maker of literary references.

Opposites attract.

* **********

The first sentence he delivers to her is awkward, something he realizes is nothing more than an annoyance to her.

She wouldn't have replied if it annoyed her. He'll never realize that, of course, but as long as he keeps up his share of the banter, she won't mind.

He initiates the conversations after that.

He'll never stop.

* **********

She grabs the collar of his jacket and pulls, never once considering any consequences.

He hadn't considered any consequences, either. Not a single thought of future penalties or costs went through his head while he told her about humans unable to settle with what was in front of them.

Not a single warning sign registered when he turned around, issuing the words that would literally change the world – _her _world – the plaything she unconsciously toyed with day after day.

If the world was her toy, he was the batteries to it. Without him, the precious, valuable game she controlled couldn't function.

He doesn't quite figure out how important he is, not until she tires of his oblivious behavior. He'll be ready to tell her something too, when that time comes.

It will be surprisingly well-received.

He questions his place within her group, the select few she chose to surround her, to entertain her, to follow her orders exclusively.

He knows the others are there because she wished for them to be.

That's what she wanted.

He's what she needed.

He's there to show her that being a normal, ordinary person is fine.

He's there to reassure her, to let her know that if she were to stop being crazy, things wouldn't change between them.

He's there to follow her through anything, no matter what stupid activity she runs off to do.

She drags him through the hallways, and part of her can't help but feel like she's showing him off, bragging to the world. To her, he's something to gloat about. She has him, and no one else does. Not one other person on the Earth can claim him, because it's already been done.

She would haul him through each corridor of every building in the city, pulling him along by his tie, by his shirt collar – by his hair, if she had to.

They both know it would never come to that.

She never tugs on him hard enough to cause pain – a gesture he supposes is more careful than he'd expect, especially coming from her.

That is, until he realizes how easy it is to drag someone who provides no resistance.

It can't really be called "dragging" if he's going willingly, can it?


End file.
